These Heart biscuits taste delicious with a cuppa and are easy to make this Valentine's Day. Pop the kettle on and enjoy a few quiet indulgent moments to yourself or wrap up a batch in some celephane with a ribbon and present them as a gift for friends and family this weekend. You'll find useful kitchen tools to help you with all aspects of cooking and baking in some exciting ACHICA promotions this weekend too...

Valentine's Day Heart Biscuit recipe

Makes 25 large hearts

Ingredients

100g unsalted soft butter

100g caster sugar

1 egg, lightly beaten

200g plain flour, plus more for dusting

Method

1. Using an electric mixer or handheld mixer with a paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar together until soft and creamy in texture. Ensure the sugar is well mixed in so you don't feel the grains anymore, but be careful not to overwork the mixture, or the biscuits may spread during baking.

2. Beat the egg in a bowl and then add the beaten egg mix into the bowl with the sugar and butter, mix until well combined.

3. Slowly sift in the flour and mix on a low speed until a dough forms.

4. Gather it into a ball, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30minutes.

CHARA'S TOP TIP: If you are making your dough in advance you can leave it in the fridge overnight!

5. Place the dough on a clean, floured surface and knead it, but not too much. You don't want to warm it up.

6. Using a large rolling pin, dusted in flour, roll out the dough to an even thickness.

7. Using your heart cookie cutters, cut out your hearts using all one size or all different sizes, then use a palette knife to lift the cookies and lay onto a

baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.

8. Chill again for about 30 minutes and preheat the oven to 180C/160Cfan/350F/gas 4.

1. Use 50g of icing sugar and a table spoon of water and mix together with a spoon, you want the consistency to be quite dry so it doesn't run over the edges of the cookies but you may need to add a tad more water or more icing sugar to get the right consistency.

2. Add a food colour of your choice to the icing then spoon on to your cookies, or spoon the mix into a piping bag and pipe patterns or writing onto the hearts.

I have used coloured fondant icing, which can be bought in all supermarkets or cake shops.

1. Knead a small amount of fondant on a floured surface.

2 Using the same sized heart cutters you used for the cookies, cut a heart out of the fondant.

3. Put a small amount of icing sugar mix on the cookie then place the fondant heart on top! Simple and stylish valentine cookies.

CHARA'S TOP TIPS: If you want to add a flavour to your cookies try some of these ideas:

For vanilla biscuits, add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence.

For lemon biscuits, add the zest of 1 lemon grated finely.

For chocolate biscuits, replace 50g of the plain flour with 50g cocoa powder.

You can keep your cookies for up to two weeks in an air tight container. Happy Valentine's Day.

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